0:00

This episode is presented by Invest

0:02

Puerto Rico. If you believe your

0:04

business can go anywhere, Puerto Rico

0:06

is the place. Hello

0:20

and welcome back to Equity, a podcast

0:22

about the business of startups, where we

0:24

unpack the numbers and the nuance behind

0:26

the headlines. My name is Alex and

0:29

this is our interview show where we

0:31

sit down with a guest or in

0:33

this case, guests, think about their work

0:35

and then unpack the rest. Today we

0:37

are keeping it in house and we

0:39

have TechCrunch senior reporters, Dominic Midori Davis

0:41

and Kyle Wigger is here. They are

0:43

writing a long running and soon to

0:45

be even longer running interview series with

0:47

women in AI. We are absolutely loving

0:49

their reporting so far, learning quite

0:51

a lot. So we brought them on the show

0:53

so we can learn even more as a group.

0:55

Dom, Kyle, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for

0:57

having us. Dom has been here before. Kyle has

1:00

been here before. You're both equity veterans, but Kyle,

1:02

I have a story for you. I'm glad you're

1:04

back because I was recently asked by someone who

1:06

works in, let's call it the technology communications world.

1:09

If you are a real person or a robot

1:11

and I'm very glad we can do kind of

1:13

a proof of life here that you are actually

1:15

a person. So welcome back. Thanks. Glad to be

1:18

back. Yeah. It's a weird wiveness check, but whatever

1:20

works for people to provide, I

1:22

am human indeed. Wish I was a robot, you

1:24

know, be more productive. Here

1:27

we are. I feel like that's more

1:29

of a comment about where we are in capitalism

1:31

than anything else, but let's put that aside and

1:33

move along. So I want to go back in

1:35

time a little bit because I've been watching you

1:37

guys put out this series now for what it

1:39

feels like months. I'm just kind of curious. What

1:41

was the Genesis and how long did it take

1:43

to spin up talking to all these women in

1:45

the world of AI, Dom? Okay. So

1:48

it was obviously because of the New

1:50

York Times publishing some AI series and

1:52

they listed like a bunch of guys

1:55

and no women. And I'm trying to remember

1:57

how it started. Either I flagged the T'Chayal

1:59

or. like we were just talking about it.

2:02

And it was kind of like, isn't it

2:04

crazy that The New York Times is doing

2:06

this massive series on AI and they're going

2:08

back to just Elon and Larry Page and

2:10

Sam as if those three guys invented AI

2:13

and AI just started three years ago. I

2:15

think that's actually crazy. Yeah, it

2:17

felt like cognitive dissonance reading that piece, not

2:19

to tear down The New York Times. But

2:22

the headline was the dawn of AI

2:25

and it profiled people, mainly white,

2:27

as Tom said, who are involved

2:29

with AI, sure, and have led

2:31

the field to where it is

2:33

today in certain ways, but didn't

2:35

necessarily contribute to some of the

2:37

important fundamental work in the AI

2:39

field, which goes back much further

2:41

than The Times suggested in its

2:44

piece. And also, obviously, it completely

2:46

passed over the role of women in

2:48

this field. And I hope

2:50

our series has shown a light on

2:52

some of the more influential figures that

2:54

weren't mentioned in The Times piece who

2:56

have been key in making important advances

2:58

and also bringing to light issues that

3:00

maybe some of the men in The

3:02

Times piece did not, have not, will

3:04

not. So one thing I'm really curious

3:06

about is how you went about selecting

3:08

the people you guys wanted to speak

3:10

to. I've read, I think, five or

3:12

six of these thus far and honestly

3:14

enjoyed each one that I've read, but

3:16

I don't have a great pulse on all the people who

3:18

are working in AI. So Dom, how

3:20

did you come up with the right

3:22

list of women to go out and

3:25

talk to? Yeah, that was definitely an

3:27

effort on Kyle and I. Kyle, how

3:29

would you explain it? Yeah, we found

3:31

that the best way to discover or

3:33

uncover women who usually don't get the

3:35

spotlight that they deserve in this space,

3:37

especially, is by asking other women. So

3:39

it kind of started with a small

3:41

group. We asked like, okay, we want

3:43

to highlight you, we want to profile

3:45

you to this series. Who else would

3:47

you recommend that might be good for it? And it snowballed

3:49

from there. I feel kind of guilty

3:51

saying this. I feel like we didn't have to do

3:53

a ton of legwork. Like the names just kept rolling

3:55

in and they were all really good and interesting. It

3:57

honestly is an approach I think I

4:00

will. take in the future as a reporter

4:02

for other stories, like maybe it's not done

4:04

enough. The content of the piece is a

4:06

sigh, like the reporting was really informative and

4:08

like really showed to me how women can

4:10

be passed over so easily. It's like, well,

4:12

you know, if the first names for a

4:14

piece like this coming to mind for your

4:16

men, of course, it'll be a list of

4:18

all men that you end up with. But

4:20

if you practice active listening and

4:23

actually solicit the opinions of people in the

4:25

fields who are in the trenches and seeing

4:27

like the inequity for themselves, it'll be a

4:29

different story. So yeah, I'm proud of

4:31

how we went about this. And I

4:33

think the result is a really strong

4:35

list of women who frankly, again, have

4:38

not gotten the press they deserve

4:40

in the past. I also wanted to

4:42

add something because after the New York Times piece came

4:44

out, a lot of women were already really, really

4:46

upset. And so there was already a lot of

4:48

conversation on LinkedIn, and there were already a lot

4:50

of lists circling and like a lot of women

4:52

were already circling their own lists. So I

4:55

think I even put out something on LinkedIn, where

4:57

I was like, does anyone know any women in AI?

4:59

And there was just a bunch of people saying like

5:01

this woman, this woman, this woman, because the women

5:03

were already trying to, they were like a

5:05

lot of professionals on LinkedIn already trying to

5:07

fill the narrative themselves. And so it kind

5:09

of made it a little bit easy for us to

5:12

at least figure out or get a

5:14

starting point and compile everything in a Google

5:16

Doc, because the names were there, which shows

5:19

that I mean, hey, the names were there. And

5:21

the names are there for people who

5:23

are still looking for women in AI, they're

5:25

all over LinkedIn, all over social media, and

5:27

they're ready. You know, one thing you

5:29

guys mentioned in your kind of err piece, the links

5:32

to all of your individual interviews was a couple of

5:34

data points that really stood out to me. According to

5:36

a 2021 era Stanford study, just 16% or

5:40

one in six Tinder track faculty that are

5:42

focused on AI today are women. And then

5:44

a separate study from the World Economic Forum

5:47

found that only 26% of analytics related in

5:49

AI positions are held

5:51

by women. Do we think that's in

5:53

part because women who do work in

5:55

those fields are overlooked, and

5:57

therefore there's fewer examples out there?

6:00

that might bring more women into the

6:02

field? And then if so, is

6:04

this series almost an attempt at

6:06

rectification of that gap? I

6:09

think like the dearth of women in

6:11

these industries or the attention

6:13

that they get, I think it's kind

6:15

of a group effort in terms of

6:17

bias. The media does disproportionately give credit

6:19

to men as we've seen these past

6:21

two years, who are the innovators,

6:23

who are the big names, the big shots in AI.

6:26

All the attention has been going to

6:28

a lot of male-founded companies. But I

6:30

think overall, like in the history of

6:32

academia and just research

6:35

and funding and entrepreneurship

6:37

and tech, women have just always been

6:40

overlooked or disregarded. Those

6:42

statistics show just an amalgam of

6:44

all of those things. Carl,

6:46

I wanna double click on the academia

6:48

point that Dom's bringing up because when

6:50

I think about AI, it seems to

6:52

be a field that definitely crosses over

6:54

into just the world of research. So

6:57

when we talk about women in these

6:59

kind of leading academic roles, that work

7:01

will lead directly into technology products. It's

7:03

not just thinking about this stuff, it's

7:05

actually building the future of AI. Yeah,

7:07

I think that's true. It's important

7:10

that people are focused on basic

7:12

AI research and answering questions about

7:14

ethics and things like data provenance

7:16

that maybe in the commercial sector get

7:19

passed over, right? Frankly, the motivations there

7:21

are different than someone working in academia.

7:23

Another important point I wanna bring up

7:26

and a lot of women we've spoken

7:28

to have talked to this is that

7:30

women need good mentors, right? So like

7:32

a lot of women in academia, professors

7:34

in AI data science, machine learning can

7:36

and are good role models for women

7:38

who might be interested in entering the

7:40

space or maybe not interested, but then

7:42

become interested as a result of speaking

7:44

with some of these women, right? I

7:46

think it was Irene Solomon at Hugging

7:49

Face, she's had a global policy there,

7:51

she was saying, you know, it's really

7:53

important for young women, especially to find

7:55

their like cheerleaders and support groups of

7:57

women who help them through. Frankly,

8:00

a challenging and equitable field, right?

8:02

As you mentioned, the stats are

8:04

not encouraging. Hopefully they're changing. Slowly,

8:06

I'm sure, but hopefully they're changing.

8:09

Big picture, these women in academia

8:11

serve multiple roles. Not only are

8:13

they focusing on important research,

8:15

research questions that then in AI

8:17

might not consider as often, I

8:19

think we have data to prove

8:21

that actually. They're also helping further

8:23

the field, building toward the next

8:25

generation by helping young people who

8:27

might be interested in this advance

8:29

their careers. Yeah, and the

8:31

research is so very important, especially as

8:34

we're trying to build policy around

8:36

a lot of this stuff, policy

8:38

and legislation, and also training a

8:40

lot of the algorithms and things.

8:42

Because we need academics who have

8:44

a more intersectional view on life

8:46

and what to look for in order to

8:48

bring up topics that we need in

8:50

order to discuss AI that can be

8:52

used for all of humanity, rather than

8:54

just a certain subgroup of people. Right,

8:57

because if people are right, this

8:59

AI stuff, speaking about it very generally, is going

9:02

to find its way into every piece of software

9:04

and down the road hardware as well. So getting

9:06

the foundations right is not a small bit of

9:08

work. It's super critical for how we're gonna live

9:10

our lives over the next, well, I mean, I

9:12

don't know, Kyle, forever? Yeah. I guess actually, let's

9:14

take a small pause, and I wanna ask this

9:17

question to you, because you cover more AI startups

9:19

than anyone that I know. Is the hype that

9:21

we've seen in the world of AI and

9:24

the concern that we've had from people about

9:26

AI regulation and so forth, are we actually

9:28

progressing that quickly? We've seen a

9:30

lot of policy news from the EU and so

9:33

forth recently, but it does seem that the pace

9:35

of which new models have come out that have

9:37

really novel new skills and abilities has slowed. And

9:39

I'm curious if that's me missing the point here,

9:41

or if that's a fair representation in view of

9:44

where AI is today. Yeah, you know, I would

9:46

say we've made some progress. The AI Act and

9:48

the EU is an indicator of that. There are

9:50

other data regulations in the EU that had an

9:53

impact on the AI industry. And the US has

9:55

a different story, it's a bit slower, but we

9:57

have had new guidance recently from the patent office

9:59

regarding AI. IP around AI inventions and what can

10:01

be patented and what can't be. And, you

10:04

know, we have a couple of women in

10:06

the series that have spoken to this, including

10:08

a few that haven't been, whose interviews haven't

10:10

been published yet. So for more insight, I

10:12

would definitely recommend checking those out. To sum

10:14

up, there's been movement, maybe not enough for

10:16

some people, but there's reasons

10:19

to be encouraged mildly. Cool. Well,

10:22

I want to dig into who might be coming up

10:24

in the series. But guys, before we get into that,

10:26

we have to take a very short break. We're back

10:28

with Kyle and Dom in just a second. What's

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next in tech? That's not

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go anywhere, Puerto Rico is

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the place. Find out more

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at investpr.org/techcrunch. Now,

11:06

one of the questions you guys dug through in

11:09

each of these interviews that I've read this far

11:11

is advice and what advice the interviewees would give

11:13

to women seeking to enter the AI field. I'm

11:15

curious if there's any particular trends or kind of

11:18

standout themes that stuck out to you there. Yeah,

11:20

one thing that stood out to me just because

11:22

I edited the interview this morning, it

11:26

was something that Kate Devlin at King's College

11:28

said. She's a professor there in AI and

11:30

society. Those are her areas of focus. It

11:32

was a good soundbite. She said, you have

11:34

the right to take up as much space

11:37

as the men speaking to women. That,

11:39

if you had to pull out a theme from

11:41

these interviews, that's certainly a strong one.

11:43

It's that it's still a male-dominated field.

11:46

It's pretty obvious. No one really

11:48

denied that that I spoke to. You

11:51

as a woman have permission and the right

11:53

to assert yourself as hard as that might

11:55

be. If you find support groups,

11:57

that makes it easier. But the message was... give

12:00

up. You will be discouraged, you

12:02

will encounter setbacks, but it's important,

12:04

it's vital that you push past

12:06

those if you can, as much

12:08

of a mental tool as it

12:10

probably takes and as discouraging as

12:12

it is. You know, maybe

12:14

not the most optimistic perspective, but it's

12:16

a very frank and honest one. And

12:19

I'd say I appreciated the honesty that a lot of

12:21

these women came to these interviews with. That's

12:24

the only way you can really answer these questions about

12:26

the field. And maybe it's the way in which we

12:28

start to confront things and make them better. Yeah,

12:30

it seems like a lot of the answers that

12:32

they gave, they echoed a lot

12:34

of the answers that other like

12:37

just overall marginalized founders give when you

12:39

ask them that question, like what advice do you have

12:41

for other people who are in marginalized disadvantage, underrepresented,

12:43

whatever word you want to use? Like what do

12:45

you have for others that are in the position

12:48

you're in? I mean, there's not really much

12:50

you can do besides like persist. I

12:52

do remember like getting support groups and

12:54

mentorship and continue to advocate for what

12:56

you want, what you need, what the world

12:58

needs, trying to be heard. But I think

13:00

it's all about persisting. There's not really much

13:02

else you can do because it's not like you can give

13:04

up because if you give up, then the work won't get

13:06

done, right? You kind of just always have to keep moving.

13:09

And that's been the big theme. And

13:11

I think that that's an overall theme

13:13

for people who are trying to get

13:15

their voices heard. You know,

13:17

Dom, one thing you and I have worked

13:19

on together off and on for a long

13:22

time as you're reporting, looking into just to

13:24

pick one metric, how much venture capital is

13:26

put into companies founded by Black founders, for

13:28

example. And we've seen an ebb and flow

13:30

of that during the kind of last venture

13:32

boom, the amount of capital raised by Black

13:34

founders in the US went up, and then

13:37

it has come back down as venture capital

13:39

itself is contracted. I'm curious if

13:41

there is a way to track kind

13:43

of progress for women in AI in

13:45

a similar way. And if

13:47

so, do the trends here look

13:49

positive? Are women grabbing more

13:52

of the work, the jobs, and

13:54

the leadership roles that are so important here? Okay, so

13:56

this is so funny. So actually, last year I asked

13:59

Crunch. based this question. And I was

14:01

actually pleasantly surprised that it seemed, or at

14:04

least according to their data, it seemed like

14:06

there was a boost in VC funding to

14:08

women founded AI startups. So interesting. It might

14:10

not be like exuberant amounts. When I'm looking

14:13

at it right now, it was like companies

14:15

raised like 3.61 billion out

14:18

of like 23 billion or something like

14:20

that. It might not be a lot, but it was

14:22

a boost. It was like an increase. Like the numbers

14:24

are going up from what they have been. And

14:26

so I remember being like pleasantly kind

14:29

of surprised by that. And so I

14:31

actually am optimistic that

14:33

with the AI craze that

14:35

is happening, I'm optimistic that

14:38

there will be a lot more opportunities

14:40

going to women, we hope. You

14:43

never know though, because investors are so

14:46

unpredictable. You just never really know with

14:48

investors, but I am optimistic. You

14:50

can't, it's just so obvious that they were

14:52

to overlook women right now. You cannot, we've

14:54

seen what happens when you build technology

14:56

in a world without women. I

14:59

think that it would just so

15:01

detrimentally harm any innovation that comes

15:03

out of this movement to not have

15:05

women's voices, that I just don't even

15:07

see how they could get away

15:09

with not giving money to women. Yeah,

15:12

Kyle, on your end, because you cover

15:14

so many different AI venture capital events,

15:16

are you seeing more women crop up

15:19

in your inbox that are building companies

15:21

that TechCrunch might feature in profile? Yeah,

15:24

definitely. I'm noticing women-led AI startups,

15:26

maybe not founded by solely women,

15:28

but there is a woman co-founder

15:31

there. It's

15:33

tough to answer this question, because like- It's basically

15:35

a vibe check versus a demand for an exact

15:37

numerical account. Like, does it seem to be coming

15:39

to becoming more common or perhaps less? I mean,

15:41

if I were to answer honestly, I feel like

15:43

I'm seeing more, but like, I don't know if

15:45

I would cover them, frankly, right? So

15:48

it's like, maybe not the best answer, but- No,

15:50

it's whatever you're seeing is what you're seeing. The

15:52

thing I was kind of curious about is, I

15:54

was going through the list of interviewees thus far,

15:56

and there are academics researchers and so forth, but

15:58

not as many- founders, as I might've expected from

16:01

the initial first, I don't know where you guys are at,

16:03

10 or 12 thus far. And so I was kind of

16:05

curious if we are going to see more women founders

16:07

of AI startups make the cut for the

16:09

series, because I would also love to know

16:12

on their particular side of the AI question,

16:14

how things are going and kind of what

16:16

they're running into or benefiting from that we

16:18

could all learn from. Right. Well, on my

16:20

end, at least it's kind of been a

16:22

conscious choice to avoid entrepreneurs and

16:24

commercial interests. My idea

16:26

for the series was to kind of focus

16:29

on policy and academia. So like you've

16:31

noticed the lack of folks from the

16:33

commercial side there, and that's like purposeful.

16:36

Like on my part, maybe like in

16:38

the future will include some or do

16:40

like a spinoff series, definitely open to

16:42

that. But like, because then it becomes

16:44

like pre-advertising, then it becomes like softball

16:46

questions for like a founder, which maybe

16:48

they deserve that maybe they don't, but

16:50

it feels a little inappropriate in my

16:52

mind to not treat them like we

16:55

would any other founder like ask the

16:57

standard questions. But that's the behind the

16:59

scenes reporting stuff that's been going on.

17:01

That's why like, so that's why it's a question,

17:03

right? Because it's like, in my mind, the series

17:05

wasn't really about that. No, that's totally fine.

17:07

I mean, it's, there's no right or wrong

17:09

answer to how you're approaching this particular question. I'm

17:12

just glad that we are highlighting these voices. I

17:14

guess maybe it's more of a condemnation of how

17:16

commercially minded I've become in our reporting process that

17:18

I was like, wait, where are the founders? But

17:21

not a weakness if that's not kind of where you're

17:23

focusing. But I'm kind of curious, Dom, something to you.

17:25

Now that the series is going on, are more women

17:27

founders in the world of AI reaching out to you

17:29

trying to get in touch and raise more awareness about

17:31

what they're building? Yes, there are. For this,

17:33

we did want to focus a lot on like policy

17:35

and like the behind the scenes founders get a lot

17:37

of attention. So kind of

17:39

wanted to take a step behind the step,

17:42

if that's the phrase. But yeah,

17:44

you know, always interested to talk to founders

17:46

about AI. We had I'm on

17:48

a podcast called Sound. We've

17:51

been talking to women in AI. We spoke to

17:54

one Rebecca Hugh from Glacier

17:57

and she makes robots. Okay,

17:59

robots. that can sort recycling,

18:01

so waste can be properly sorted

18:03

and reused. And we also spoke

18:05

to Alison Wolf from Vibrate Planet,

18:07

who's using AI to create some

18:09

really cool technology to help with wildfires

18:11

and stuff. So there's a lot of really,

18:14

really cool women doing really cool things

18:16

with AI. It's just something that, yeah,

18:18

a lot of women have been reaching

18:20

out to us about their products and

18:22

super excited to read them all because

18:24

there's just so much cool stuff happening.

18:26

And I just think the narrative of

18:28

the cool things that are happening, it

18:31

should be more inclusive. So it's fun

18:33

to add to that. Absolutely. And

18:35

that kind of actually leads well into my last question for you

18:37

guys, which is, Dom, you know, who's coming up in the interview

18:40

circuit and who should we have our eyes out for? I

18:42

feel like it should be a secret. Give me a tease. Come on.

18:45

You can't just say, absolutely not. I will go

18:47

into WordPress and I will find your drafts. I'm

18:50

kidding. It should be a secret. Kyle, I think, dropped

18:52

a hint when he was talking about

18:54

editing in the CMS. I think he dropped the

18:56

name by accident. Oh, was that an accident? Or

18:59

was it not an accident? Yeah, I'm playing six

19:02

dimensional chess here. But journalists famously

19:04

organized people. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy

19:06

to preview one because I think it'll

19:08

be a good one. Kathy Vital, who's

19:10

director at the patent office, was willing

19:12

to participate in this. And I think

19:14

her answers were, she has an interesting

19:16

background. You know, she didn't really, AI

19:19

was not the end destination she had in mind

19:21

for herself, but she ended up there. You

19:24

know, went to college at 16. Like, she's a

19:26

fascinating person and has like really interesting views on

19:28

the field and good advice for women looking to

19:30

pursue it as well. So I am

19:32

pumped about that one. Don't know when it'll publish.

19:34

That's kind of out of my hands at this

19:36

point. But be on the lookout. I think listeners

19:39

will enjoy that a lot. All right. And

19:41

then if people want to suggest a name to the

19:43

ongoing series, Dom, what's the best way to get a

19:45

hold of you and Kyle? I don't know about you,

19:47

Kyle, but I don't mind an email or also

19:49

Twitter and LinkedIn. I'm still trying

19:51

to hit 10K on Twitter. So you could follow

19:54

me on Twitter and then like DM

19:56

me a name. I'm fine

19:58

with email, honestly. Yeah, email works,

20:00

mastodon, whatever, signal, your medium of choice. We

20:03

look at all of them. We've had quite

20:05

a few come in since the series began.

20:07

Apologies to those who haven't heard back if

20:09

you're waiting, but rest assured we see them.

20:11

So don't hesitate to reach out or even

20:13

suggest a name if one comes to mind.

20:15

All right. And then Dom, you did mention

20:18

a couple of interviews you've done on FOUND.

20:20

Where can people find that podcast on the

20:22

great wide internet? Oh, it's on Apple podcast.

20:24

You could also just easily go to my

20:26

byline and then it's there. It's like

20:28

the recent articles. You could just, that's

20:31

the easiest way. Or, you know, anywhere where

20:33

podcasts are available is also another easy

20:35

way to find FOUND. Don't you guys

20:37

also have a Twitter handle? Yes, it's

20:39

FOUND. Excellent. I

20:42

was trying to lean towards, Hey, you're in the first

20:44

name club for X over there on social media. But

20:46

everybody, we're going to leave it there. Kyle, Dom, thank

20:48

you so much. If you need more from the equity

20:50

crew, of course we are equity pods over on X

20:52

and threads. We did not get the first name handle.

20:54

We had to add pod there because we weren't as

20:57

cool as the kids over at FOUND. And if you

20:59

want more from the entire TechCrunch podcast network, we are

21:01

TechCrunch pods on TechDots. This is

21:03

Alex. This is Equity. We'll talk to you soon. Bye. Equity

21:07

is hosted by myself, editor in

21:09

chief of TechCrunch Plus, Alex Wilhelm

21:12

and TechCrunch senior reporter, Mary Ann

21:14

Azevedo. We are produced by

21:16

Teresa Locun Solo with editing by Kel. Bryce

21:18

Durbin is our illustrator and a big thank you

21:21

to the audience development team and

21:23

Henry Piccavet who manages TechCrunch audio products.

21:26

Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.